Comparing Chinese provinces with countries

Which countries match the GDP, population and exports of Chinese provinces?

China is now the world's second-biggest economy, but some of its provinces by themselves would rank fairly high in the global league. Our map shows the nearest equivalent country. For example, Guangdong's GDP (at market exchange rates) is almost as big as Indonesia's; the output of both Jiangsu and Shandong exceeds Switzerland's. Some provinces may exaggerate their output: the sum of their reported GDPs is 10% higher than the national total. But over time the latter has consistently been revised up, suggesting that any overstatement is modest.

What about other economic yardsticks? Guangdong exports as much as South Korea, Jiangsu as much as Taiwan. Shanghai's GDP per person is as high as Saudi Arabia's (at purchasing-power parity), though still well below that in China's special administrative regions, Hong Kong and Macau. At the other extreme, the poorest province, Guizhou, has an income per head close to that of India. Note that these figures use the same PPP conversion rate for the whole of China, but prices are likely to be lower in poorer provinces than in richer ones, slightly reducing regional inequality.

Correction, February 25th: The original figure given for Hong Kong's exports included re-exports. This has been changed to refer to domestic exports only.

I believe a significant percentage of Hong Kong's exports originate in mainland China and just pass through Hong Kong on the way to foriegn markets, you will notice that all the coastal provinces have significantly higher export numbers than landlocked ones, even when the landlocked provinces have comparable GDP figures.

In order to make a fair export map you would have to include interprovincial trade in the export numbers.

@huhahuha
"Interesting. India's GDP per capita only equals that of China's poorest province, this must be heart-breaking for our Indian friends who frequent TE's web site."
That is your contribution to the discussion? Of course you also noticed that China's GDP per capita equals that of China's 3rd of 4th poorest province, while the richest provinces rank up there with the likes of Singapore and Qatar. Speaks volumes about the spread of the fruits of China's boom to its own citizens.

Seems you can't even tell the difference between GDP per capita on PPP and on exchange rates. This graph shows GDP per capita based on PPP. China's GDP per capita is right in the middle between Fujian and Hebei.

@sora2000,
That's because Taiwan is not part of mainland China, which is currently under the Communist rule. The most distictive difference between Taiwan and mainland China is they have different political institutions leading to the fact they are nearly different in every aspect of life.

GDP figures are useful but are often misleading (see definition below). The figure that matters is the net "profits" an economy generates and not just the market value of what it sells.
If we apply the rigor of the fundamental equation to the definition of GDP (i.e., Price= Cost of materials + cost of labor + Profit) we will quickly see how the above map changes dramatically. More important than oil and its politics are the billions of dollars expatriates send to their home countries and the politics of correctly accounting for the remittances of migrant labor. For a nation to earn $10 B of net income from exports of manufactured goods an investment of around $50-$75B and annual sales (turnover) of around $50 B to $ 80 B are typically required. The question with huge political ramifications is how to correctly account for expatriate remittances on the economic checks and balances of young and unstable economies of the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. These economies may be in a much better shape than many think.
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Gross Domestic Product: The total market value of all final goods and services produced in a country in a given year, equal to total consumer, investment and government spending, plus the value of exports, minus the value of imports.